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Paul Moran

For 30 years, more than 22 at Newsday, in New York, Paul Moran has covered thoroughbred racing on its highest level. During that time, he has covered 30 Triple Crown series, every running of the Breeders' Cup Championships, 23 race meetings at Saratoga, won two Eclipse Awards, a Red Smith Award for coverage of the Kentucky Derby and other writing awards from the National Society of Newspaper Editors, Long Island Press Club, Society of Silurians (the oldest press club in New York), Long Island Veterinary Medical Association, Florida Magazine Publishers Association.

In 2002, he was named New York's best thoroughbred handicapper by the New York Press in its annual "Best of Manhattan" edition. His work has appeared in virtually every racing publication published in the United States and most major American newspapers. He is a licensed owner of thoroughbreds in New York Contact: paulmoran47@hotmail.com.

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

The recently announced Eclipse awards for writing serve as a convenient mirror for the “old media vs. new” dialogue that has from time to time moved to the front burner in the “new media.”

Having served for the last two years as a judge in the features/enterprise competition, I have at least a short-term perspective of the material submitted for consideration. The depth of work produced in 2008 was impressive. Forty-three pieces were submitted and several would have been worthy winners in a competition ultimately won by Vinnie Perrone, former racing writer at the Washington Post for a skillfully crafted piece that appeared in Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred. If any of this material was born in the “new media” is was not apparent.

I have no idea how many submissions were considered in the news/commentary category but a column written by Billy Reed after he and his granddaughter visited trainer Larry Jones’ barn at Churchill Downs on the morning after the death of Eight Belles last spring, published in the Thoroughbred Times, was the winner. Reed is a 65-year-old veteran of Sports Illustrated, Louisville Courier-Journal and Lexington Herald Leader. Bill Nack, also past 60, veteran of Sport Illustrated, biographer of Secretariat and author of several other books, was runner-up for a piece that appeared on ESPN.com.

The common thread is that the Eclipse winners, and the contenders, are old-media figures no longer working for old-media enterprises. They are first writers whose credentials predate the Internet, people whose perspective spans decades marked by voluminous bodies of work. They have seen much, all of which they bring to every theme, new and familiar. But, the framework within which they built careers – the “old print media” – is rapidly disappearing.

Many newspapers will, in some form, endure the current storm of change but in a form unfamiliar to those of us who grew up reading great sportswriters and columnists of the last century and who aspired to follow. Eventually, racing and other niche sports will be forced to develop industry supported news agencies to service publications no longer capable or willing to expend the resources necessary to cover the even major events. No American newspaper outside Kentucky or New York employs a full-time beat writer/columnist to cover racing and the total number of these positions – three, four if you count the Los Angeles Times, which reacted at least temporarily to finding the Breeders’ Cup in its lap by assigning the demoted sports editor to the beat – is a sad commentary on both racing and the American newspaper industry.

But let us not confuse blogging with a new wave.

While there is journalism on the Internet, the blog – an awful word in its own right – in its pure form is not the “new media.” It is certainly an adjunct, providing platforms and voice to those who are passionate about any number of things, including racing and a forum for debate but certainly fails to pass the litmus test of credibility and authority. It has been embraced by almost all mainstream newspapers as a vehicle to retain reader involvement but has generally failed to translate into a meaningful commodity in terms of monetary value.

The blog in its pure form is an unfiltered personal journal but works far more efficiently as a collective effort, the only example of which was The Rail, published briefly during the last Triple Crown by the New York Times. That effort, which lent exposure to the authors of several personal blogs, compiled submissions from dozens of individuals, posted new material throughout the day and required a staff.

More typically, the racing blog is a solitary effort of a person whose income is derived from real-world employment but who is passionate about the sport and perhaps a specific area – history, betting, politics or combination of the sport’s many facets. The trade publications, including the Daily Racing Form, have embraced the format largely in the manner of mainstream publications, but of the old-school racing writers who publish such sites, only Maryjean Wall, a fixture at the Lexington Herald-Leader for decades, maintains a blog in the pure sense. Others – including the one you are reading – depart sharply from the pure form.

A successful personal blog is one that elicits reaction from readers and becomes almost participatory. While the authors of scores of racing blogs – many well done and thoughtfully written -- have successfully broadened the dialogue, they have contributed little to either the journalism or literature of racing. Before that happens, another step or two in the evolutionary process will be required that will determine its place in a changing landscape. At the moment, so called “citizen journalists” are essentially hobbyists.

A good deal of the fodder of digital subject-matter in this realm centers upon the changing media landscape.

Writing in the Atlantic, Michael Hirschorn provides a glimpse at what looms as a dramatic development in the media world that could see a change in the paper of record unimaginable only a few years ago.

“VIRTUALLY ALL THE predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print—the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. Most of these scenarios assume a gradual crossing-over, almost like the migration of dunes, as behaviors change, paradigms shift, and the digital future heaves fully into view. The thinking goes that the existing brands—The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal—will be the ones making that transition, challenged but still dominant as sources of original reporting.
But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?
It’s certainly plausible. Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400million in debt. With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good …

“ … The collapse of daily print journalism will mean many things. For those of us old enough to still care about going out on a Sunday morning for our doorstop edition of The Times, it will mean the end of a certain kind of civilized ritual that has defined most of our adult lives. It will also mean the end of a certain kind of quasi-bohemian urban existence for the thousands of smart middle-class writers, journalists, and public intellectuals who have, until now, lived semi-charmed kinds of lives of the mind. And it will seriously damage the press’s ability to serve as a bulwark of democracy. Internet purists may maintain that the Web will throw up a new pro-am class of citizen journalists to fill the void, but for now, at least, there’s no online substitute for institutions that can marshal years of well-developed sourcing and reporting experience—not to mention the resources to, say, send journalists leapfrogging between Mumbai and Islamabad to decode the complexities of the India-Pakistan conflict. “

At the moment, newspapers lack the resources to send journalists leapfrogging from Miami to Lexington, Louisville, Baltimore, New York and Saratoga, as was once the practice for those who once tilled these fields -- a now virtually extinct breed of racing journalists –people who thought nothing of covering the Flamingo Stakes at Hialeah on Saturday and the Santa Anita on Sunday.
Nothing currently in racing’s digital space can possibly fill this void and there is no new breed.

Michael Hirschorn pretty much has it right. Print media is, like Thoroughbred racing, going out of business; print media cannot compete with the ‘news’ appearing on the internet.

Racing blogs offer me the opportunity to be heard, which was not the case went print media was dominant; the turf writers then had a total monopoly on racing coverage, giving me no chance to render an opinion - turf writers were king, and I was a nobody to be seen and not heard.

Thanks to the internet, turf writers are no longer the only voice, as us lowlifes now can comment.

We made this point before but apparently you haven’t gotten the memo. Personal attacks are not what HRI is about; honest differences of opinion are. Please make personal commentary relevant to issues. Thank you.

Wendell,

I realize that referring to horseplayers as lowlifes is made on a sarcastic level but I believe it’s counterproductive nonetheless.

Further, the turf writers who had a total monopoly back in the day were themselves limited by deadlines, storylines, competition and the views of editors. With 20,000 people showing up at Roosevelt Raceway every night, not to mention the flat tracks in New York, racing WAS news and was considered a sport.

We wrote about what people wanted; news about the game. The sport wasn’t in trouble then. In fact, the 70s, when I first came along, for instance, often has been referred to as racing’s golden age. Three Triple Crown winners in six years will do that.

But, mostly now, it’s about space. I can write as long or as short as I like. On this site, which either employs former professional journalists of accepts content from them--and they can write about whatever they want with no space limitations.

Finally, the comments of our readers makes this site what it is. Frankly, HRI can’t make a difference unless our readers are engaged. We’re all united in a common goal: survival, then, hopefully, making the kind of contributions that might lead to solutions.

We’re going to continue to try. Hopefully, with the help of the audience we respect, and never take for granted.